Various mobile tree harvesting devices have been proposed and used with a certain degree of success and these include harvesters for handling a plurality of trees. One of the shortcomings of these prior art devices however, resides in their inability to hold individual severed trees in a positive manner and at the same time, successively gather additional trees and bunch them together with the previously accumulated trees. One example of a prior art multiple tree harvester is shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,371,692 issued Mar. 5, 1968 to Larson et al. and entitled "Method for Harvesting Trees". That patent and its parent U.S. Pat. No. 3,238,981 show a device which encircles and tightly grips a plurality of trees about their upper portions to bring them into contact relationship with one another to form a cluster and then cutting those trees at their bases and continuing to grasp all of the trees and then clamping the trees adjacent the cut ends thereof and delimbing the cluster of trees. In other words, that harvester does not individually gather the trees and cannot hold the accumulated, cut trees while other individual trees are being gathered and cut and then bunched together with the previously accumulated trees.
Another example of a prior art, multiple tree harvester is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,795,264 issued Mar. 5, 1974 and entitled "Tree Accumulating Attachment for a Tree Harvester". That device shows an accumulator which has tree receiving means that permits the tree trunk to be advanced therethrough and which is detailed in dimension for engaging and retaining a plurality of tree trunks. That device however cannot positively hold the accumulated trees while the subsequent tree being gathered is positively grasped and held and then moved into engagement with the accumulated trees, while the accumulated trees are continued to be grasped in a secure manner.